The Cambridge Companion to Sherlock Holmes

Accessible exploration of Sherlock Holmes and his relationship to late-Victorian culture as well as his ongoing significance and popularity.

Janice M. Allan (Edited by), Christopher Pittard (Edited by)

9781316609590, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 May 2019

284 pages, 15 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.3 x 1.4 cm, 0.47 kg

'… a welcome and important contribution, and it is attractively produced … I look forward to engaging with this volume both in my scholarship and in my teaching.' Tom Ue, Victorian Studies

Sherlock Holmes is the most famous fictional detective in history, with a popularity that has never waned since catching the imagination of his late-Victorian readership. This Companion explores Holmes' popularity and his complex relationship to the late-Victorian and modernist periods; on one hand bearing the imprint of a range of Victorian anxieties and preoccupations, while on the other shaping popular conceptions of criminality, deviance, and the powers of the detective. This collection explores these questions in three parts. 'Contexts' explores late-Victorian culture, from the emergence of detective fiction to ideas of evolution, gender, and Englishness. 'Case Studies' reads selected Holmes adventures in the context of empire, visual culture, and the gothic. Finally, 'Holmesian Afterlives' investigates the relationship between Holmes and literary theory, film and theatre adaptations, new Holmesian novels, and the fandom that now surrounds him.

List of illustrations
Notes on contributors
Acknowledgements
Chronology
Textual note
1. Introduction Janice M. Allan and Christopher Pittard
Part I. Contexts: 2. Holmes and the history of detective fiction Merrick Burrow
3. Doyle, Holmes and Victorian publishing Clare Clarke
4. Doyle, Holmes and London Stephen Knight
5. Englishness and rural England Christine Berberich
6. Gender and sexuality in Holmes Stacy Gillis
7. Doyle and evolution Jonathan Cranfield
8. Doyle and the criminal body Stephan Karschay
9. Holmes, law and order Jeremy Tambling
Part II. Case Studies: 10. The empires of A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four Caroline Reitz
11. Sidney Paget and visual culture in The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes Christopher Pittard
12. Gothic returns: The Hound of the Baskervilles Janice M. Allan
Part III. Holmesian Afterlives: 13. Holmes and literary theory Bran Nicol
14. Adapting Holmes Neil McCaw
15. Neo-Holmesian fiction Catherine Wynne
16. Sherlockian fandom Roberta Pearson
Further reading
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary companions, book reviews & guides [DSRC], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literature: history & criticism [DS]